William R. Anderson

“A lot of interest had developed on the contest to design a cachet or postal mark for envelopes that were to be mailed at the North Pole. I had reasoned that we could assume and later get confirmation of authority to act as an official post office at the North Pole, which meant that the stamps on the envelopes could be canceled with the ship’s name and date and our very interesting location at the time of their mailing. There were two superb entries in the competition. One was done by Bill McNally, a very talented artist, and John Kurrus, who was almost as good a cachet designer as he was a periscope welder. The other entry was developed by John Krawczyk and was a bit more adaptable to the face of an envelope.”
― William R. Anderson, The Ice Diaries: The Untold Story of the USS Nautilus and the Cold War's Most Daring Mission

“Doggie Rayl was a perfectionist, and a man lucky to be alive to make the trip to the North Pole. Rayl was a signalman aboard the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was sleeping topside to escape the heat below when the Japanese attacked. The explosions blew him overboard, and he managed to scramble to another ship. That is how he survived the Arizona’s sinking.”
― William R. Anderson, The Ice Diaries: The Untold Story of the USS Nautilus and the Cold War's Most Daring Mission